I had intended to touch on elements of today's post, but UP Partners' 2025 Moving World Report does it so much better and to a much greater extent.
I had intended to point out that the single greatest advance in warfare lies with the use of drones, which account for two-thirds of the materiel losses sustained by the Russian army in and around Ukraine.
This is a consequence of the latter's purchase of over ten-thousand commercial drones per month from China, destined to carry modest munitions that have proven sufficient however to destroy tanks, jet fighters and not least soldiers.
Paying for all of this effectively has been the West, and thus it represents a significant flow of funds from west to east which can be expected to continue... in fact the UP report makes clear that in many respects China is already a replacement superpower.
But here's a few takeaways from the slide-show that features almost a hundred-fifty, working from top to bottom and left to right:
Drone deliveries exceeded a million by 2023 and at a third the cost of going by road
Outside of Ukraine, the biggest advances in the above are at the behest of Walmart
Western kids most want to be influencer, gamer or YouTuber as per astronaut (1971)
After halving since 1980 pedestrian deaths doubled again after invention of the iPhone
China is massively increasing carbon emissions, but also doing most to electrify us
Germany's pursuit at reducing the above means they use less electricity than in 1978
The remedy in the West ~ or rather Europe ~ is to accept you're in decline and that even being the world's court jester has its attractions.
As regards our own pursuit at carbon-reduction ~ much like setting fire to yourself in public in the hope someone notices ~ ignore the media and look around instead.
In and around Liverpool docks the most pervasive presence is endless trains carrying wood pellets from one side of the UK to the other. It has been shipped in from the far side of North America, likely featuring destruction of virgin forest as it has when sourced from Europe.
I don't know how much carbon that involves, but we do know that more recently the required fuel for Drax power station came from a coal-mine just twenty miles distant: but nonetheless all of this ticks the required boxes, which Europeans most enjoy.
As for pedestrian deaths I recall from demography lectures that Honda and Yamaha's production of high-power mopeds that sixteen year-olds could ride actually produced an uptick in global deaths at that age.
Jonathan Ive recently said on radio that the impact of what he so enthusiastically designed in the shape of the iPhone has begun to tell, and whilst we all knew it was killing our brains I suspect few of us realised that it was killing the rest of our bodies on the streets.
Question for me at school: Is the pen mightier than the sword?
Question for my son at school: Is the iPhone mightier than the AK-47?
